Making History: Leighton Meester and Adam Pally to Star in FOX Comedy Pilot

by Cindy McLennan, March 10, 2016

Gossip Girl‘s Leighton Meester is set as the female lead in the Making History TV series pilot at FOX. She will play opposite Adam Pally, in this time-travel comedy. Pally played Max Blum on Happy Endings, which was cancelled by ABC, after three seasons. He also played Dr. Peter Prentice on The Mindy Project, which was cancelled by FOX, then picked up by Hulu.

In Making History, Pally plays computer science professor, Dan, who invents time travel and uses it to find a more satisfying social life. In his journeys to the past, he meets Meester’s Deborah.

[Dan is] a nerdy computer-science professor at a small college and the “failure” of an accomplished family. Dan is unpopular with both students and colleagues on campus, where his extreme intelligence comes off as odd. He invented time travel, hoping to get a fresh start and meet less shallow people. He studied human behavior scientifically and methodically uses stolen music, movie lines and popular culture to great acclaim in the past, where people find him interesting, dashing and gallant. The potential series will feature two Dans — the “nerd rage” guy having a hard time in the present, and the cooler, more carefree guy in the past.

Meester will star as Deborah, a colonial woman self-educated and incredibly motivated with modern ideals trapped in a regressive time. She has contemporary beliefs of gender and racial equality, which everyone scoffs at in 1775. Julius “Goldie” Sharpe (The Grinder) will pen the script and executive produce Making History alongside The Last Man on Earth creators Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Seth Cohen also will exec produce the single-camera comedy from 20th Century Fox Television.

Making History features three friends who travel through time, which makes their modern-day lives more difficult. It finds itself one of a few time-travel related pilots in the works, this season.

ABC ordered the Time After Time pilot back in late January. Kevin Williamson of The Vampire Diaries and Dawson’s Creekfame will write and executive produce. Marcos Siega is directing. Regina Taylor, Freddie Stroma, Josh Bowman, and Genesis Rodriguez are in that pilot’s cast.

In early January, Comedy Central ordered College Humor’s Time Traveling Bong to series. That show is written and produced by stars Ilana Glazer and Paul W. Downs, and by director Lucia Aniello.

How do you like the Making History TV show pilot cast, so far? If FOX orders Making History to series, do you think you’ll check it out? Which of the time-travel related shows most interests you? Let us know, below.